


Harry Potter and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

by Peapods



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 20:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19837978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peapods/pseuds/Peapods
Summary: You're never too old to change, but how you go about it is entirely up to you.





	Harry Potter and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

**Author's Note:**

> IDK, a manager once gave me this book and this is the only use I've ever gotten out of it. If you recognize the title, you'll recognize the book and if you don't, don't worry about it until your boss takes a management seminar and takes it seriously. I've already thrown it away.

**Chapter One: Be Proactive**

“Alright you lot, directives from on high--new directives for engagement with Muggles,” Head Auror Jeffries says, carelessly flicking his wand, sending scrolls hurtling toward desks.

Ron groans, “Last week it was team-building retreats, this week,” he unrolls the scroll, “Proactive interactions.”

Harry, having unrolled his own, comments, “Get a load of this: ‘The language of reactive people absolves them of responsibility. We want you to be proactive in taking responsibility for your actions.’” He scoffs, “We send in reports that are all _about_ taking responsibility and OPMR still had our arses up for hearings after that incident with sewer backflow. Was it my fault the Muggles had been putting sanitary napkins down the bloody toilet?”

“‘Basic paradigm of determinism’--what in the bloody hell.”

Two days later, Harry manages to curse a Muggle with a basic gibberish spell whilst trying to deflect an addling curse. When OPMR sends back a request for a new report--with new language demonstrating Harry’s mea culpas in more explicit terms--he makes his way up to OPMR, conjures up a vat of liquid nitrogen, freezes the scroll, smashes it to bits, and stares at the head wizard, dead-eyed.

“I’ve proactively decided that the new directives are shit. I’ve proactively decided to ignore them. I proactively invite you to kiss my arse if you’ve a problem with it.”

He’s suspended for a week with pay and the new directives are roundly ignored from thereon out.

** Chapter Two: Begin with the End in Mind **

The divorce papers, when they arrive, in no way surprise Harry. Oh, certainly it might have five years before, but there was only so long he could deceive himself. 

Harry was grumpy and tired of Ginny’s enduring optimism.

Ginny was sarcastic and tired of Harry’s grumpiness.

Harry had begun to wonder if they’d ever had much in common beyond family.

Ginny had been wondering if she’d settled for the biggest catch instead of finding something she liked the taste of (she’d then suggested they finish the argument down at the pub over massive quantities of fried fish).

Auror Wilson, whose parents had been divorced since he was 12, was unsympathetic. “Not everyone gets the fairy tale ending, Potter. You get to have the knowledge that your parents were together and madly in love when they died, but who the hell knows what would have happened after the second or third kid. Having known _you_ for a few years, my bet’s on murder-suicide.”

Five years earlier, Harry probably would have smacked him roundly for that dig then cursed his yogurt to give him the runs for three months. 

Five years on, he just shrugs and stuffs another chip in his mouth. 

** Chapter Three: Put First Things First **

“You need to get back out there, mate!” Ron tells him after finally accepting that Ginny and Harry simply weren’t working anymore and that Harry had only done his half of the work getting them there, _“so really, Ron, there was no reason to spell out “Homewrecker” in his azaleas. Honestly, why did I marry you?”_

“I need to get back out there just about as much as I need a root canal,” Harry grumbles, swirling his pint.

“I think what Ron means is that it’s high time you made connections outside work and us,” Hermione says diplomatically.

“Like hell,” Ron exclaims, “I meant he needs a shag!”

Hermione stares him down, “There are some days, Ronald Weasley, I honestly can’t believe I consented to marry you.”

“That’s nothing new, love, I’ve been in disbelief since you accepted.”

But Harry does as he’s told. He fire-calls old friends and hits the pubs and live his 40’s like the 20’s he never enjoyed properly.

Three months later, he wakes up in Las Vegas fully clothed, with a hangover, and married to Luna Lovegood.

“You really can’t hold your tequila,” she tells him dreamily, before swinging a leg over.

** Chapter Four: Think Win/Win **

Albus is being bullied at school. He doesn’t hear it from James or Lily or even one of the professors, but from the twins. Luna’s kids are as dreamy and odd as she is, but that apparently just makes everyone underestimate them.

“They _were_ sorted into Slytherin,” Luna tells him, looking at him like he’s daft. 

(She looks at him like that a lot, but not in the way Ginny had. She doesn’t care that he can’t remember their anniversary--well, he can’t remember the wedding either, but he figured if they were going to give it a shot he ought to try--and she forgets her brain-to-mouth filter just as often as he does, if not more. But when he expresses doubt in the existence of an animal or questions the wisdom of keeping a Thestral as a pet, she looks at him as if he’s just said the Nazis weren’t so bad.)

Albus was sorted into Slytherin as well and that has not been a particularly easy thing for the rest of the student body (or parts of his extended family, to be honest) to handle. Harry’s own near-sorting into that House has never been made public, but now he sees that whatever pep talk he offered his son would have been better used on literally everyone else.

The Prophet runs his article two days after he writes it--he’s not a hermit, but he’s declined most interviews that aren’t to do with Auror business so they’re keen.

Headmistress McGonagall sends him a bottle of aged Firewhiskey. The Board of Governors begin talks about overhauling the House system. The Twins report that Albus and his small cohort--including Scorpius Malfoy of all people--are being treated like heroes. 

Head Auror Jeffries assigns Harry’s paperwork to a trainee for a month.

All in all, a win/win situation.

** Chapter Five: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood **

Harry runs his hands over his face, “So, you ruined your trunk and caused an outbreak of almost deadly mold because you wanted to start a synchronized swim team?”

James, predictably, looks askance and fidgets with his wand.

“Where did you even get the gillyweed?” Harry asks, exasperated.

“Uncle Ne-”

“Of course it was Uncle Neville,” Harry cuts him off. Harry hopes he hasn’t been as permissive as the Dursleys when it comes to his kids, though he has made sure they want for nothing, but there’s only so much you can delude yourself when your kid thinks he can smuggle potions ingredients and start an illicit sports club without fear of repercussions.

“He didn’t know what it was for!” James defends.

“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t. He may be a Gryffindor, but your Uncle Neville is about the only one of your relatives with healthy common sense and lack of a death wish.”

James seems to sense the danger at that point and doesn’t open his mouth again.

“Right, that’s your broom gone for 3 months--”

“Dad!”

“Do you want it to be 6 months?” Silence. “That’s what I thought. No broom and you’ll be carrying your belongings home in Muggle bin bags. If you want to swim, you’ll do it like everyone else.”

James is sullen, but doesn’t argue.

Maybe he’s gotten the hang of this parenting thing.

“Did you ever actually teach him to swim without gillyweed?” Luna asks later.

Bollocks.

** Chapter Six: Synergize **

****

****

The Kentucky Creeper Luna had planted one spring manages to take their house hostage two years later.

They come up from the weekly shop and stop dead in the lane as they observe their Tudor Detached looking a bit more like Sleeping Beauty’s castle after the spinning wheel mucked things up.

“The flowers are very pretty,” Luna comments vaguely.

“Sort of ruins the effect of the thatched roof,” Harry says, frozen in place. Luna already has her wand out and is carefully prodding one of the vines. It shrinks a little and one of the blooms lets out a blast of pollen that smells like--

“Oh, perfect, I’ve been looking for a way to incorporate whiskey into my orange scones!” 

When Ron and Hermione find them, there are three baskets full of blossoms and he and Luna are accidentally pissed, stumbling around so haphazardly that bits of vine keep popping out to prop them back up. 

“We’ve-(wheeze)-we’ve had a bit of a situation,” Harry tells them. “But we’ve figured it out.”

“You’re house is covered in vines and you’re stumbling drunk!” Hermione exclaims.

“Ah yes, _but_ we’ve reached an accord with them!” Luna says, twirling a flower in Ron’s face. His nose goes red as the effects hit.

“With vines,” Hermione deadpans.

“You’ve pulled up mandrakes and you’re going to argue with semi-sentient whiskey-vines?” Ron asks.

“Mmmm, and given that Harry only ever goes out there to smoke the marijuana he thinks I don’t know about, we’ve allowed them use of the shed.”

“Luv, sometimes a man just wants to smoke and watch the footie on telly, alright?” Harry says, but he can’t keep a straight face and Luna positively shrieks with laughter.

“I’m joking, of course; Harry is terrible at rolling a joint.”

At this point, Hermione just sighs and plucks a handful of blooms from a basket for herself.

** Chapter Seven: Sharpen the Saw **

“Alright, you lot, quieten up or you’ll have a 24 inch essay due Friday,” Harry uses his teacher-voice as he gets to the front of his new classroom.

He turns and watches several rapturous, excited faces fall into vague fear. He anticipated this when McGonagall blackmailed him into taking the DADA job: mobs of students just waiting to bombard him with questions about Voldemort. So he’d taken a page out of Snape’s book (who’d learned it from McGonagall) to intimidate them early. These are the fourth years, so they’re easily cowed, but not pants-shitting scared.

“Your former professor left fairly detailed notes on where you ought to be in the curriculum, but we’ll likely spend the first week making sure your brains haven’t turned to porridge.”

The students settle in, respectful, and his first class goes swimmingly. His last class of the week goes less well.

“Lily says-!”

“I’m aware of my daughter’s opinion on the subject. I’m also aware that she is 17, I am 48, and as your professor, mine is the opinion we’ll be trusting.”

“But--!”

“Right, 24 inches on on why vampires do not make good romantic partners. Well-researched. I see one reference to Anne Rice or glitter and I’ll bin it.”

He floos home that Friday, feeling content and energized, and picks a bouquet of Kentucky Creeper (now cozying up to the shed in the back garden and possibly cross-pollinating with an unsuspecting English ivy). He finds Luna in the library and catches her around the waist. “Let’s get tipsy and fool around.”

“You’ll have to shave the beard.”

“You like the beard,” he says indignantly.

“My thighs don’t. Also, we’ve a double date with the Weasleys. Then commiseratory drinks with Neville to celebrate your new position.”

“Bollocks.”

“Then you can get me drunk and take me to bed.”

“Luv, you have a confident and, frankly, charitable estimation of my ability to get it up after what will invariably be a Friday night piss-up.”

“Then we’ll get drunk and go to sleep and fool around tomorrow,” Luna says sensibly. “What was the point of having kids so early if we don’t get to have a Saturday lie-in while we can still do something about it?”

He knew there was a reason he married her (beyond a lot of alcohol and a midlife crisis).

Harry’s initial plan may have been foiled, but the buzz under his skin doesn’t go away. They dress in Muggle clothes--Ron has taken to Muggle restaurants in a way even Hermione wasn’t expecting--and hit the town. They drink too many bottles of wine then head back into Diagon Alley to meet with Neville. 

“The shine will definitely wear off,” the other man tells him shaking his head over a pint.

Harry doesn’t really believe him though. He’s not having to file reports in triplicate and he can forgive a 12 year old student their abuses of the English language with a lot more equanimity than a 32 year old Auror. He has a set schedule and he won’t have to come home after midnight anymore. The addictive adrenaline of his youth is no longer his drug of choice. James is playing in a Quidditch minor league in America, Albus has gone into research with Scorpius Malfoy of all people (he won’t tell Harry or Ginny what the research is, only that he probably won’t be killed or arrested for it), and Lily is Head Girl. He and Ginny have actually become friends and she’s dating an old teammate and being pictured in Witch’s Weekly wearing gowns and going to all the balls and parties Harry had eschewed for twenty years. 

It’s odd, he thinks, as he and Luna stumble up the lane to their home, that he felt more comfortable, happier now than he had when he’d thought he’d had everything. 

“We ought to smooth the path before winter,” Luna mutters as she strips over loose dirt.

“Nah, it’s fine the way it is.”


End file.
